Symposium honors Dean Harold Attridge of Yale Divinity School

DALLAS (SMU) — Perkins School of Theology will host a symposium in honor of Dean Harold W. Attridge of Yale Divinity School on the occasion of his receiving the degree of Doctor of Divinity honoris causa from SMU during Commencement on May 16.

The symposium, on the theme “The Bible in American Public Life,” is to be held on Friday, May 15, from 10 a.m. until noon, in Perkins Chapel.

It will feature brief presentations by four SMU faculty members who will address different aspects of that theme—Professor Mark Chancey, chair of the Department of Religious Studies in Dedman College, and Professors Jaime Clark-Soles, Roy L. Heller, and Susanne Scholz of the Perkins faculty — followed by a response by Dr. Attridge.

The symposium will be preceded by a welcoming coffee beginning at 9:15 in the Gill Gallery of Bridwell Library, adjacent to Perkins Chapel.

Dr. Attridge taught New Testament at Perkins School of Theology from 1977 to 1985. He came to Perkins from Harvard, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975 and served as a Junior Fellow from 1974 to 1977. He had previously received an A.B. from Boston College in 1967 and a B.A. and M.A. from Cambridge, where he studied as a Marshall Scholar. Following his tenure at Perkins, Attridge went to the University of Notre Dame, where he was Professor of New Testament and then, from 1991-1996, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. In 1997 he joined the faculty at Yale, where he serves as the Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament as well as Dean of the Divinity School.

Professor Attridge's research has explored issues in Hellenistic popular philosophy, Judaism in the Hellenistic period, the exegesis of the New Testament, and the history and literature of early Christianity. His numerous publications include a widely-acclaimed commentary on the book of Hebrews, and he is currently at work on a commentary on the Gospel of John. He is a past president of the Society of Biblical Literature.

The SMU community and the public are cordially invited to these events.

Perkins School of Theology, founded in 1911, is one of five official University-related schools of theology of The United Methodist Church. Degree programs include the Master of Divinity, Master of Sacred Music, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Church Ministries, and Doctor of Ministry, as well as the Ph.D., in cooperation with SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.